Nurses unite! Take back your stethoscopes! The country’s nurses are pushing back against “The View” and the hosts who denigrated the work of nurses generally and Miss Colorado, Kelley Johnson, in particular.

As the world now knows, during the talent portion of the pageant, Johnson, who is from Windsor, wore a stethoscope and her nurse’s scrubs while giving a monologue about her career as a health worker. Collins found Johnson’s bit “hilarious.”

Under the hashtag “#nursesunite” a typical comment directed at the show and the host (@TheView @JoyVBehar) read, “I save lives. What do you do?”

A Facebook post by nurse Hilary Helkenn:
“Today on The View, Joy Behar and crew mocked Miss Colorado Kelly Johnson for appearing on stage in her nurses uniform. They asked why she was wearing a “Doctor” s stethoscope. “. So here is my reply… Also posted on The View’s FB page. Please feel free to share! “Hey Joy and ladies of The View! This is my nurse uniform. For the last 20 years, I have put it on and bravely walked into hospitals to care for the ones you love. See my stethoscope? It is a NURSE stethoscope too…”

By Tuesday, “The View” backtracked. In her apology, Behar said, “I was just stupid, I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.”

Many angry viewers complained about KUSA Channel 9’s apparent interruption of Jay Leno last night for a long, long commercial break.

This is surprising, first, because that means lots of people were actually watching Leno. And, second, because the overload of commercials made people very suspicious. Some accused the station of censorship, cutting away from saucy Joy Behar (who was blasting Glenn Beck). Others thought it was a matter of greed, stuffing so many commercials into the slot.

In fact, it was a technical goof.

According to KUSA General Manager Mark Cornetta:

“We had an automation system failure last night which caused the server to continue to run commercial breaks until the operator on duty discovered the system failure and was able to remedy the problem. These systems are not perfect but generally are reliable. This had nothing to do with the guest or censorship of the Leno show. We do not censor this material. It was simply a technical mistake.”

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.